1) Plan for assessment- part of planning involves communicating the assessment along with criteria for different performance levels to the the students prior to assessment.

2) Ensure the the assessment is valid, reliable, objective, and standardized--think about the meaning of these words!

3) Allow students to select an assessment tool from several that represent their learning modality or primary intelligence--allows students to select different assessment tools in order to utilize their strengths. providing different assessment options for a single standard is called: Multiple Measures

4) Ensure that student dignity is respected throughout the assessment process--protect students' self-esteem and provide the most supportive environment for students to demonstrate their learning.

5) Use embedded assessment and record the best evidence of the student's performance related to each standard:means assessing students while they are actually practicing--as a part of instruction or simultaneously with instruction. This type of documentation provides evidence of student growth over the instructional unit.

6) Use assessment to inform students and parents of student progress toward the achievement of the standards, and to enhance instruction--provides 2 important purposes--determination of individual student's progress toward achievement of the standards, second provide teacher with information on the quality of his/her instruction, especially in formative assessment.

What are the Assessment Development Process or Steps?

Step 1-- Identify the standard noting the verb, type of verb, and skill, activity, or content

Step 2-- Choose the assessment tools that best allow students to demonstrate their achievement relative to the standard

Step 3-- State the criteria for competence

Step 4-- Describe the levels of quality

Step 5-- Develop samples of student work that illustrate each level of quality

Step 1--Identify the Standard

Part 1-- restate the grade or unit-level standard

Part 2-- identify the verb, along with verb type, doing this provides direction for the selection of assessment tool.

Identify the Standard:
-"__________"
What is the verb in the sentence?
What is the type of verb?
What level of proficiency is stated?
What is the skill or content?

5 Step assessment development process: Step 2

Choose the assessment tool

5 step Assessment Development process: Step 3

State Criteria for competence

5 step Assessment Development process: Step 4

Describe levels of quality

5 step Assessment Development process: Step 5

Describe the Anchors

What are the multiple choice question development guidelines?

Include as much of the item content in the stem as possible
State the stem in the positive
Have distractors(incorrect answers) that are plausible alternative answers, and parallel in form an length.

Avoid over using "always"; "never"; "all of the above" & both "A and C" in the distractors

Randomly select position of correct answer

Have only one correct or best answer

What are the development guidelines for Short Answer questions?

Write questions that are very specific

Requested answers are brief and specific

Only one desired answer is appropriate

What are the development guidelines for Open Ended questions?

Determine a real-world context for the question

Define the question as specifically as possible

Include two or more questions that are more specific and shorter instead of asking a single longer question

Inform student of the grading criteria and conditions (i.e. expected length of the answer)

What are some guidelines to follow when writing rubrics?

Find a balance between being to general and to detailed

Consider quality and quantity

Use meaningful criteria that clearly define each level

Keep the distance between levels equal

Ensure that the elements are appropriate for everyone

Expect to revise

Diagnosis

through measurement you can assess the weakness (needs) and strengths of a group of individuals

May cause you to alter your initial approach to what you are teaching

Can identify who is a group has good technique, which enables you to devote more time to those who cannot perform the skill.

Diagnostic testing after a group has participated in an activity my determine why some individuals are not progressing as they should

Classification

My be occasions when classifying individuals into similar groups for ease of instruction

People feel more comfortable when performing with other of similar skill....homogeneous grouping

Achievement

Most common reason for measurement & assessment to determine the degree of achievement of program objectives and personal goals

Assessment of each student's skill at the beginning of an activity unit helps you determine the effectiveness of an activity unit helps you determine the effectiveness of previous instruction and programs and at what point you should begin your instruction

Evaluation of Instruction and Programs:
Prediction

measurement to predict future performance

Evaluation of Instruction and Programs:
Research

used to find meaningful solutions to problems and as means to expand a body of knowledge

Evaluation of Instruction and Programs:
Analyze and Interpret Data

Statistical analysis can provide you with a more meaningful evaluation of your measurement and better inform all participants of the test results

Statistical Terms:
Data

result of measurement; numerical result of measurement

Statistical Terms:
Variable

trait or characteristic of something that can assume more then 1 value

Evaluation of Instruction and Programs:
Determine the Worth of a Test-- Validity and Reliability

Validity-- refers to the degree to which a test measures what it claims to measure.

Reliability- refers to the consistency of a test

knowing how to interpret statements about these characteristics, more likely to select the appropriate tests to administer to your subjects.

Statistical Terms:
Population

includes all subjects (members) within a defined group

Statistical Terms:
Sample

part or subgroup of the population from which the measurements are actually obtained

Statistical Terms:
Random sample

one in which every subject in the population has an equal chance of being included in the sample

Statistical Terms:
Parameter

a value, a measurable characteristic, that refers to a population; population mean is a parameter

Statistical Terms:
Statistic

value, a measurable characteristic, that refers to a sample; used to estimate the parameters of a defines population

Statistical Terms:
Descriptive statistics

methods used to describe a group; every member of a group is measured and no attempt is made to generalize to a larger group

Statistical Terms:
Inferential statistics

when a random sample is measured and projections or generalizations are made about a larger group; able to use data generated from a sample to make inferences about the entire population

Statistical Terms:
Discrete data

values are limited to certain numbers and cannot be reported as fractions

Statistical Terms:
Continuous data

can have any value within a certain range; values can be reported as fractions;
examples: time & distance

Statistical Terms:
Ungrouped data

measures not arranged in an meaningful manner; raw scores used for calculations

Statistical Terms:
Grouped data

measures arranged in some meaningful manner to facilitate calculations

What are the 4 types of Scales of Measurement?

Nominal

Ordinal

Interval

Ratio

Scales of Measurement:
Nominal

the lowest and most elementary scale; Numbers used to represtent variables, but the nimbers do not have numerical value

Numbers represent categories. They do not distinguish groups or reflect differences in magnitude

Scales of Measurement:
Ordinal

provides some information about the order or rank of variables; doesn't indicate how much better or worse one score is than another

numbers indicate rank of measurements but not magnitude of the interval between measure

Scales of Measurement:
Interval

information about order of variables, using equal units of measurement; distance between scale is always the same

possible to say how much better one is for another

has no true 0

Scales of Measurement:
Ratio

possesses all the charachteristics of the interval scale and has a true zero point

In most statistical studies interval & ratio scales are analyzed in the same way

numbers represent equal units between measurements, and there is an absolute 0

Affective

Learning dispositions concerning how students act and feel including attitudinal, emotional, and valuational, responses of the learner.

assessment tools that engage students in the learning process and assess higher-order cognitive processes; this type of assessment requires students to generate a responses to a question rather than choose from a set of responses given to them.

Analytic rubric

A procedure in which performances are evaluated for selected dimensions, with each dimension receiving a separate score.

Anchor

A sample of student work that exemplifies a specific level of performance.

Authentic Assessment

Processes of gathering evidence and documentation of a student's learning and growth in ways that resemble "real life" as closely as possible.

Checklist

Specifies whether or not criteria for successful performance of an activity are met.

Concurrent validity

The relationship between a small sample of items that represents the total content measured

Construct validity

the relationship between what is actually being measured and what was intended to be measured

Content Standards

What students should know and be able to do in various subjects.

Criteria

The elements contained in a rubric or scoring guide that identify factors necessary for evaluating performance.

Criterion-referenced assessment

Describes how well a student performs in comparison with a predetermined and specific standard of performance.

Curriculum

A planned sequence of formal instructional experiences that defines the content to be taught (what) and the methods to be used (how and when).

Embedded assessment

Assessment that occurs simultaneously with instruction.

Exemplar

A sample of student work that illustrates specific levels of performance

Exit Standards

Expectations of what all students should know and be able to do at graduation for high school.

**Formative Assessment

Ongoing assessment that can provide information to guide instruction and improve performance.

Grade-level standards

Expectations of what all students should know and be able to do at the end of a grade level; these are sometimes referred to as benchmarks

Norm-referenced assessment

Describes how well a student performs in comparison to other students.

Objective

A specific learning outcome intended to be accomplished in a short period of time (i.e. 1 lesson)

Peer Observation

Provision of feedback on performance to a peer, based on criteria supplied by the teacher.

Performance indicator

A measure that describes how good is good enough.

Pre-assessment

Occurs at the beginning of a Unit of instruction and allows for the p[planning of appropriate development sequences.

Process criteria

Criteria that refers to how the performance or product is completed.

Product criteria

Criteria that refer to what a student produces or does.

Qualitative analytic rubric

A type of analytic rubric that requires the scorer to determine a level of quality for each dimension assessed using a verbal description for that dimension.

Quantitative analytic rubric

A type of analytic rubric that requires the scorer to determine a level of quality for each dimension assessed using a number.

Rating score or scale

Specifies the extent to which, or frequency with which criteria for successful performance of an activity are met.

Reliability

The degree to which the results for an assessment are dependable and yield consistent results.

Standardization

A set of consistent procedures for administering and scoring and assessment.

Standards-based assessment

Criterion-referenced assessment that shows clear and direct relationship between the assessment and the identified standards.

Standards-based Curriculum

A curriculum designed to produce student understanding and work that demonstrates achievement of the identified standards.

Structured Observation

An assessment that includes observation and evaluation of a performance based on criteria

Summative assessment

Assessment that takes place at the end of instruction.

Validity

The degree to which an assessment measures what is supposed to measure.

Guidelines for Rubric Development
six-point & four point

Six-Point Rubric
6: Fully achieves purposes of the task
5: Accomplishes the purpose of the task
4:Completes the purpose of the task substantially (meets criteria)
3: Purposes of the task not fully achieved
2: Omits important purposes or movements
1: Fails to achieve purposes of the task

Four-Point Rubric
4: Fully achieves purposes of the task
3: Completes the purpose of the task substantially (meets criteria)
2: Omits important purposes of the task
1: Fails to achieve purposes of the task

Mean (average) Characteristics

1) It is the most sensitive of all the measures of central tendency. It will always reflect any change with-in a distribution of scores.

2)Most appropriate measure of central tendency to use for ratio data and may be used on interval data.

3)Considers all the information about the data and is used to perform other important statistical calculations.

4) Influenced by extreme scores, especially of the distribution is small. This is one major disadvantage of the mean.

Median (middle) Characteristics

1)Not affected by extreme scores; more representative measure of central tendency than mean when extreme scores are in the distribution.

2)Measure of position; determined by the number of scores and their rank order. Appropriately used in ordinal and interval data

3) Not used for additional statistical calculations.

Mode(occurs most frequent) Characteristics

1)Least used measure of central tendency. Indicates the score attained by the largest number of subjects. Used to indicate most popular item or product used by a group.

2)Not used for additional statistical calculations

3)Not affected by extreme scores, total number of scores, or their distance from the center of the distribution.

Range(highest and lowest values) Characteristics

1)Dependent on the extreme scores

2)Least useful measure of variability

Standard Deviation Characteristics

1)square root of the variance, most useful and sophisticated measure of variability. Describes the scatter of scores around the mean

2)Applicable to interval and ratio level data, includes all scores, most reliable measure of variability.

3)used with the mean; in normal distribution +1 and -1 s from the mean should include 68.26% of the scores.

4)Small SD indicates group being tested has little variability; homogeneous. A large SD indicates group has mush variability; heterogeneous

5) Used to perform other statistical calculations. SD is especially important for comparing differences between means.